Hill: Excellent From Start To Finish

Manager Keith Hill spoke to Dale Player after his side were cruelly beaten by a deflected shot…

“There’s nothing more the players can do. I thought they were excellent from start to finish,” said Hill.

"We came here to win a game – we didn’t park all the players behind the ball. We were very offensive, very attacking and we paid a lot of respect to the opposition.

“We wanted to win the game but we’ve lost it by fortune, negative fortune, with respect to the way that they scored the goal. That’s just football sometimes and the footballing gods because there’s nothing really we could have done.

“We had excellent opportunities and I thought it was a great game of football. I was really pleased with the players and their absolutely tremendous efforts.

“They’re a little bit disappointed because lady luck hasn’t shone on them today, it’s shone on Sheffield United and I don’t think the opposition will mind me saying that.

“They won’t pick the paper up tomorrow and say what’s Keith Hill saying, what’s he seen, because they’ve seen the same game. After the game one or two of their coaches suggested that they might have used the get out of jail free card, but that’s football.

“We’ve been competitive but we’ve been beaten. I expect Sheffield United to be challenging against the elite of the elite, but for one small moment we were very close to beating them.”